<p>So my essays weren’t very impressive, but from what i’ve heard, good stats/california residency mean more than anything in the UC system. </p>
<p>Was I right to consider Davis a safety?
School: Bay Area, competitive public, best district in Cali (Acalanes)
UC GPA: 4.4
SAT: 2180
ECs: purposely not listing just to test how far my stats would get me…</p>
<p>Overall, yes, stats are more important. However, not necessarily at campus. Your UC GPA is great and your SAT is good, so those already give you a good shot at Davis. However, Davis weighs the essays and ECs a lot more than others, and it uses a point system, etc. I wouldn’t consider it a “in”, but a good shot, even with less than awesome essays.</p>
<p>(I had a friend with 4.3 and 2050 that was rejected from Davis)</p>
<p>Davis reads the essay to look for attributes for which their admissions formula will assign points, but otherwise it doesn’t matter if the grammar is terrible, the story abysmally dull, or the vocabulary childish. </p>
<p>If the essay mentions that one parent fought or lost to cancer during your high school time, it would be picked up to assign points into the formula. </p>
<p>If you mention that you did crazy hours of charitable work, encountered a situation that totally changed your life, and did a brilliant job describing how this affected you, it is wasted effort as far as UCD; no points for charity and no points for essay quality. </p>
<p>See <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/608083-estimate-your-admissions-decision-ucd.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/608083-estimate-your-admissions-decision-ucd.html</a> for information on how the admissions committee evaluates candidates.</p>
<p>I went to Acalanes too! haha. Class of '02. I helped paint that hideous mural outside of the cafeteria.</p>
<p>thanks for the link! based on that link, i think my sat/gpa/elc eligibility alone reaches the cutoff margin. my essay basically answered the prompt with a dull story, but was grammatically correct. so i guess i shouldnt worry then.</p>
<p>quick question… i’m actually not sure if i sent out that elc letter, but remember getting one from school. Am I still “qualified” to get that 1000 points?</p>
<p>btw…i go to a school in the acalanes district, but not acalanes high.</p>
<p>Davis/Irvine/SB don’t consider the essays as much. They are more stat based but then again I know Davis also looks for Leadership.</p>
<p>I’d say even with bad essays, you’re about 90% in at least.</p>
<p>Berkeley, LA, and Irvine use “comprehensive review” in admissions, which means they look at the application more holistically. Therefore, essays might matter more with these schools.</p>
<p>The other UC’s use a point system for admission, which I believe is heavily weighted toward GPA and sat scores.</p>
<p>“Of the six selective campuses using comprehensive review, three (Berkeley, Irvine, and Los Angeles) rely primarily on the judgment of professional readers and do not assign fixed weights to particular factors. Three (Davis, San Diego, and Santa Barbara) rely on the judgment of professional readers for some factors and on computer-assigned scores for others and then combine these ratings using fixed weights for different criteria.”</p>
<p>[10.6.2003</a> - Questions and answers about UC admissions](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/06_admit_ucop.shtml]10.6.2003”>10.6.2003 - Questions and answers about UC admissions)</p>